Publications
What is Open Access?
It’s Open Access Week!
Open Access (OA), when applied to peer reviewed research, means that content is free to access by anyone, without the need to pay. Importantly, it also means that it is free to distribute and reuse under some form of creative commons licence. This contrasts with subscription content, which is generally behind a paywall, with sharing and reuse restrictions. Many funders around the world mandate OA, particularly government funders who support the principle that publicly funded research should be publicly available.
OA in the RES journals
The RES publishes seven journals, in partnership with Wiley. All our journals are currently hybrid, meaning that they publish both subscription and OA content. Funder mandates for OA have increased over the last few years, and this has meant that the proportion of OA content in our journals has also increased.
We are excited that more people than ever before can read, share and use our content without restrictions. At the RES, we support the principles behind OA and open science more broadly. We have an Open Science Working Group that assists the work of the RES Publications Committee. As funders continue to push for OA research and the proportion of OA content therefore continues to increase, we anticipate that our journals will have to start moving towards becoming fully OA. This move would not be without its challenges and, importantly, the RES is committed to ensuring that this transition only occurs when it is beneficial to our authors, readers and the wider entomological community. This will also form part of a wider Open Research Roadmap that will advance the Society’s promotion of robust, reproducible and transparent science.
Future challenges
There are many funding models for OA journals but by far the most common and most straightforward is Gold OA. This means that there is a charge for each article published – an article processing charge (APC), instead of a subscription model, where there is a charge to read journals. Most funders that mandate OA, generally cover APCs; however large numbers of entomological researchers around the globe do not have access to APC funding. This means that there is an inequity of access to publish research in many OA journals.
At the RES we are keen to ensure that anyone doing work suitable for our journals can submit to them and we are working with Wiley to ensure that this is the case for any future transition.
Why support RES journals?
Like most Learned Societies, the RES gets most of its income from its journals. This income not only financially sustains our journals, but also funds much of the Society’s important work to support insect science and entomologists around the world. If our journals are to continue to thrive and disseminate high quality research, and all of the Society’s work to support our community is to continue, it is important that we navigate the changing landscape in publishing successfully, maintaining equity of access to publish in our journals, and maintaining our income. Our dedicated editors and publishing team are working hard to do this, but the support of our community is crucial. By publishing in, reviewing for, and reading our journals, you are supporting all of our work.
So, if you have a paper close to submission and aren’t sure yet where to send it, add the RES journals to your list. Several of our journals are also looking for new editors to join their fantastic, supportive teams.
If you think you might be interested, visit our vacancies page.
